This is my final supplicationbefore the sun has set and the moon burned out.

Santosh Kumari

Santosh Kumari grew up happy but poor as the third of the five children of Chinu and Pritam, a subsistence farmer and slate quarry worker in the hamlet of Dupnal, a small cluster of Gaddi homes in the highest part of Upper Dharmkot, above Mcleod Ganj. As part of an outreach program to the Gaddi community initiated by the then director of the Tibetan Childrens' Village Schools, Jetsun Pema, Santosh was accepted into grade eight in the Upper TCV school, not far from where she lived. She went on to receive her grade 12 certificate, and then a Bachelor of Arts, and a Teaching certificate from Himachal Pradesh University where she is presently in her first year of a Masters degree in English Literature. She is the first in her family to graduate from university and is married to a Chambali man, Pawan Kumar, a mathematics teacher. Together they have one son, Aayan